Last night at the PRAC meeting, Peter McLaughlinWM: Looking at it, it appears that there were a whole raft of items which contributed to the decline of Lake St. as a commercial street. One was closing off Nicollet, one of the more bonehead decisions made somewhere along the line.
defended the Access Project as a partial correction of
the damage done to the neighborhoods and Lake Street
when I-35W ripped them apart in the 1960's.
In my opinion, Peter has it partially right; I
believe there is merit to the idea that the 40 year
decline of areas of south Minneapolis and Lake Street
near the freeway had a lot to do with the freeway
being built, but I don't believe it was lack of direct
access at Lake St. that caused the damage
Putting freeways through cities at all was, however, the more bone headed decision and it was made in city after city across the nation. My home town, Cincinnati, looked at it as a way to "clean out the ghettos" and scatter African Americans from pillar to post. Cincy also saw it as a way to remove one of the worst public health problems by removing the row houses built in the early 1800s and replacing the sewer system. This is not a 20th Century phenomenon, but one practiced since Adam.
I do think, though, that by far the biggest contributor to the decline of Southside and Northside was red-lining by banks, insurance companies, and city services. It got too difficult to get a loan to fix one's house and the cost of insuring the house, car, apartment, hovel got more expensive. It took considerable energy on the part of a grass roots movement to change that through the Community Reinvestment Act imposed on banks and insurance companies, as well as others.
Basically, the damage done by the freeway was that itWM: Actually, you've got the cart before the horse, so to speak. Men coming back from WWII wanted to marry and reproduce and needed housing and education so to do. The impetus for the freeway system followed the attempts by cities and counties to create housing for returning soldiers.
made suburban flight possible; with a freeway, it was
suddenly possible to commute 15 - 20 miles quickly
compared to transit on city streets.
People who couldWM: The people who moved out there first did so because there was no housing left inside the city limits. Many of them had enough skills to build their own houses. My uncles and aunts actually poured the concrete, laid the concrete blocks, framed, plastered, painted, etc. their own houses out in what was then the far boonies. There were no freeways and no buses, so it was quite a trek to go for Sunday dinner to the rellies.
afford to moved further and further out, taking their
disposable income with them.
WM: Yeah, at the end of the day working people want to go home the easiest way they can get there. Me too. Most people have that whole other job, maintaining their family, to get too. There are people who drive here from Circle Pines, St. Cloud, Rochester. There are those who fly in from California, New York, and Boston.I think the Access Project, by creating direct freeway access for Wells Fargo and Allina, will exacerbate this phenomenon, making it even easier for suburbanites to come and work in the city, and flee home at the end of the day.
The design of the project was to make all the to-and-froing less messy. Some folks are only coming from as far as 66th St. And some are going all the way to Eden Prairie and further south from this neighborhood. If we insist that everybody work and live within the city limits, we'll be stacked like cordwood and cannibalizing each other to a fare thee well. The city will have to knock down housing to build for greater density.
Folks have noticed an increased interest in living inWM: It's possible. Certainly the older I get the more I see the value of compact living with all the luxuries like theater, music, dance, art and conviviality packed into a small, easy to reach space. On the other hand, from a person who has spent all but about five years of her life living in the inner city, getting a double wide and planting it up a holler somewhere has a lure all its own.
the city over the past few years - I believe one of
the major contributors to that is the capacity
constrained freeways that are limiting potential for
sprawl through long commutes.
WM: The only thing that is less than sterling about this project as it is now configured is the lack of dedicated bus lanes and the fact that MNDOT refuses to go under Lake St. rather than bridging it. With community and leadership support, dedicated bus lanes are possible. The more sensible solution of digging out under Lake St. will probably never see the light of day due to the cost.Bigger freeways will not only destroy additional property in the city, but they will also have a chilling effect on development in the areas of the city where investment faces the greatest risk - the extended suburbs are viable alternatives with big freeways and "access".
It's a sin and a shame that the world cannot be made as perfect as one might see it in the mind's eye. We are left with mending and making do. Such is life.
WizardMarks, Central
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